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Cairo, Bulaq Museum

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo was established by Muhammad Ali Pasha and the Museum was relocated to the Ministry of Public Education at the Citadel, where objects were intermittently given away. Said Pasha presented the remaining objects in this first collection to Archduke Maximilian Joseph of Austria-Este in 1855, which were then given to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

By 1863, a new museum, the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities was opened at Bulaq by Auguste Mariette but flooding in 1878 damaged the building and the collections were moved in 1891 to a former royal palace in Giza. By 1893 in order to address lack of storage and unsuitable display conditions a new museum was planned to house the antiquities in Tahrir Square that was finally completed in 1902.